IN the wake of the beheading of a teacher in France, it is time to review and redefine the limits of what we call ‘freedom of expression’, as the deceased teacher had reportedly shown blasphemous caricatures to his students as an example of ‘freedom of expression’.

While it is easy to kill or prosecute the attacker, the matter is not going to be resolved unless serious legislation is done by global organisations, such as the United Nations. The world needs to understand that there is a slight but critical difference between ‘hate speech’ and the ‘freedom of expression’. Freedom of speech must not be used to spread hatred.

Religion is a sensitive topic; one must not criticise others’ beliefs without expecting a reaction. As things stand today, one wonders why freedom of speech is used only while talking about Islam, especially when there is already growing Islamophobia in the West. The proponents of the notion of ‘freedom’ seem desperate to use it to malign only Islam.

Though haters keep crying about ‘extremist Islam’, they ignore the fact that gruesome wars were not fought, and are not being fought, by the Muslims.

What the West calls ‘free speech’ is actually ‘hate speech’.

Kainat Zehra
Larkana

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2020